


Stop The Rain

by eajwrites



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, BriJae, Jaebri, Jaehyungparkian, Jaeyoung, M/M, Romance, Vampire Hunter, finally a plot for me, hunter dowoon, hunter jae, hunter sungjin, hunter wonpil, jaebrijae, jhpian, kjaehyungparkian, parkian, slight angst, vampire brian, vampire jae, vampire youngk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22402186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eajwrites/pseuds/eajwrites
Summary: Ever since Jae had been barely aware of his surrounding, he was already holding his first set of twin daggers. He was fated to be a hunter. And henevernot liked it. As a matter of fact, he did everything in his disposal to try and catch up to his genius older brother Sungjin. He was his role model. He looked up to him; so much that even when their parents would shower his brother all their love and support but never spared a single glance at him, he never felt sorry for himself or got jealous of his hyung. Rather, he was inspired to work even harder. That’s why when he became the hunted instead of the hunter, he still had his hopes. And boy was he wrong. His so called ‘hope’ landed him inside a prison that taught him how much pain it takes to break one’s mind.But when he was about to give up on his life, two miracles happened. First, he was freed and second, he was taken in. Although his benefactor didn’t look like someone that he can put his trust on, he was left with no choice but to rely on him.But what happens if Jae realizes that the very same man was literally the reason behind all of his suffering?
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Park Jaehyung | Jae
Comments: 60
Kudos: 101





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> please. for the love of parkian, read the prologue. i beg you. do not skip. this is for your own good. okay? thank you.

_**Prologue** _

**The Crimson War**

Amidst the screams of hundreds of vampires and hunters alike, a single shrill halted all movements. 

Violet looked down and saw the blood pouring out of her chest.

A tear rolled down her white porcelain cheek to her chin, where it lingered for a second before finally dropping onto the tip of the blade that pierced her heart. 

She didn’t have to look back to find out who was wielding it. 

She smiled bitterly to herself before raising her head for the last time. She needed to be strong. No. She needed to act as if she alone could carry the weight of the entire universe, so she pressed her trembling lips together tightly before turning around and opening them again. “Right from the start I knew this part of you. But love turned me foolish and blind.” Her voice faltered at the mention of the word ‘love’. 

Violet was the genius of her generation. She grew up in an ideal household, with the perfect upbringing coupled with the most impeccable education and training. But all of that was set aside when she fell in love with a man. The man who had just stabbed her.

With the last ounce of her strength, she looked at him in the eyes and smiled. Mockingly. “You tried so hard to find out what my special power is, didn’t you? And you were never even close…” Violet cut herself off, coughing up the blood she had tried to hold back on her hand. It shone brightly on her palm, red and thick. She locked her gaze on him again but now with eyes filled with anger and hurt. “Here’s a hint, so listen well. When the goddess of beauty glides across the sun, not only a single moon will lighten up the lands. This curse, I shall lay so that if ever the next one will commit the same mistakes I did, he or she who has the same fate shall come to aid.” When she finished speaking, the black dot sitting on the blade of her left shoulder vanished into thin air, along with her life.

That day, Kim Jeongshin became known as the hero who had killed the Sefol, for the hunters and humanity. But for the vampires that remained, he was nothing but the coward hunter who couldn’t even kill a girl, had she not had her back on full display in front of him.


	2. Mist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /mist/  
> \- tiny droplets of water hanging in the air. these droplets form when warmer water in the air is rapidly cooled, causing it to change from invisible gas to tiny visible water droplets

“You’re late again.” Was the greeting Jae received from his roommate, as soon as he let himself in on their shared bedroom.

As a vampire hunter, Jae lived in the vampire association’s headquarters, together with the remaining five hundred and seventy-one hunters. It was basic protocol. Every single one of them needed to reside in their designated rooms. To normal people, the building would just seem like your typical twenty story residential condominium, but in fact, it was separated in two distinct areas – the upper and the underground floors. The upper floors were where all the vampire hunters ate, slept and somehow got their shits done, while the underground floors – which went as far as thirty floors below the ground – were where the official business was being kept. That included vampire prison cells, training facilities, research laboratories and the armories. Sounds fun, right?

Jae removed his glasses and tossed them on top of his pillow, before hurling his handbag under his bed. The man who had just made a comment about his late arrival was Wonpil – his friend for ten good years. Jae threw him a glance, “I got held back at work.”

“Chief Park came in here just a while ago, looking for you. Judging by his expression, you’re dead meat, Park Jaehyung.”

Jae listened in silence to his friend’s chatter as he flung his office clothes on the bed and pulled out his gear – a black turtle neck and a long black coat – in less than five seconds.

“I bet he’s just worried about his little brother,” Jae stated in confidence but in his head, he was already trying to come up with a good excuse. It’s true that he’d been held back at work, but that reason wouldn’t work on Sungjin. 

All of the vampire hunters worked like any other ordinary human out there, during day time. Their reasons for doing so differed from one another; some just wanted to kill some time, others worked for some fresh breath of air, while Jae worked for extra income. Surely, his monthly salary as a vampire hunter could cover his daily expenses, but it wasn’t enough to buy his personal collection of short swords and daggers – a hobby he’d developed from a young age, maybe because as far as he could remember, he had always been carrying daggers with him everywhere he went. Even when doing something as mundane as eating dinner with his family. 

“I don’t think so.” Wonpil countered as he held out a cup of steaming coffee for Jae to take. He somehow managed to make it in the five second time frame Jae was busy changing his clothes. “You need this for tonight’s mission.”

Jae took it. “Thanks man,” he drank a sip of it and placed the cup on the edge of his bed, before fastening two black straps on his thighs. There, he secured three knives and two daggers – one dagger on each and three knives on his dominant right side. He lifted the cup again and drank the remaining hot liquid in one gulp, before straightening up. “Gotta see the hot-tempered grizzly then.” He said, referring to Park Sungjin, his older brother and chief of the South Korean Vampire Hunter Association Research Department. “See you later.”

***

“Do you know what day it is today?” Sungjin started, as soon as Jae came inside his office.

 _‘Tuesday, check your damned calendar, hyung,’_ screamed Jae’s mind, but a whole different set of words came out of his mouth. “It’s the fated day, sir. I am well aware how critical today is. This is the day when the core will manifest itself on the Sefol after a hundred years,” he answered in a monotone voice, akin to that of a soldier’s voice when under interrogation. Straight and precise.

Sungjin stood up from his desk. His lab coat made a rustling sound as he took a few steps Jae was barely even able to see, before he appeared right in front of him, making it look like he teleported there, in the perspective of a normal untrained person. 

Park Sungjin was a renowned researcher specializing in vampire genetics and origins but his fighting skill was a league higher than that of his younger brother, who excelled in all sorts of martial arts.

Jae grew up wielding any kind of weapon thrown at him. He was the top fighter of his batch and he was considered as the best among the elite field hunters up to date. But not even once had he won against Sungjin. A bitter truth but a truth he could swallow somehow, albeit painstakingly.

“Once you get back from your patrol tonight, be sure to kill everyone in here.” Sungjin shoved a brown envelope on Jae’s chest.

Jae opened it and took out a piece of paper. He read the contents. The numbers which corresponded to physical identifications were almost endless. He met his brother’s unwavering eyes with his own shocked ones. “Y-You can’t be serious, hyung. You want me to slaughter hundreds of captive vampires?”

“Are you disobeying my orders?”

“N-no sir. Just… Why?”

“The only reason why they’re still alive up until now is because of the possibility that one of them might be the Sefol. But after tonight, if the Sefol will finally be born and none of them will turn out to be that being, they'll no longer be of use to us.”

“Then what if the Sefol will emerge from among them tonight?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Use your brain for once Jae. If the Sefol will emerge from one of them, he or she will be a magnificent subject for my research. Now stop it with your silly questions, I have a lot of work to do.”

Jae made a slight bow. “Then I will be on my way, sir.”

“One more thing.” Sungjin stopped him, casting his eyes on Jae’s jeans. “The next time I see you wearing that ripped piece of clothing while on duty, I will personally sew them to your skin.”

Jae grimaced, and proceeded to nod shortly. “I understand.” He could perfectly imagine his hyung holding a needle, ready to sew him up without any anesthetics. He had done it once before, albeit in different circumstances, when Jae had accidentally wounded his knee. God was that awful. The healing process had hurt ten times more than getting hurt. He definitely needed to avoid his brother whenever he happened to be wearing those jeans in the future.

***

Twenty minutes prior to his arrival, about two hundred meters away from him, Jae spotted a fast-moving creature running across his line of vision, paving away the tall grasses like a boat sailing in calm waters. Then, not a second later, another creature passed by at a slightly faster speed. There’s no doubt that the first one was being pursued. At Jae’s current situation, his best option was to attack the latter first.

That night, Jae’s primary assignment was to confirm the reported sightings of vampires at the mountain region in the heart of Seoul. His second goal was to exterminate them if he had the upper hand. And he supposed he had the upper hand while the creature was still concentrating on its own prey.

He ran after his target. It was too caught up with the first creature that it hadn’t noticed Jae closing in, not until one of Jae’s knives pierced through its chest, that is. But Jae never would have guessed that the same fate awaited him. He hadn’t noticed that another creature of the night had been following him. And another, and then another. Jae deduced that it was a group of Preene chasing a lone Asgar. And because he had been too impatient earlier, it wasn’t about the Asgar anymore. It was about him. In a blink of an eye, he was surrounded by three Preenes. 

The Asgar must have been on the run after violating the vampire society’s rules – hence the group of Preenes. 

The vampires were divided into three groups. The Asgars held the lowest status, as they were despised mainly for their physical traits: wrinkled pale skin, bulging eyes and white long hair. In addition to these, they emit a foul odor, akin to that of sewage, which was very unpleasant to the two other vampire groups, since they possessed a powerful sense of smell. The Preenes looked exactly the same as the Asgars, but they had the ability to transform into their desired appearance, which they used to fool humans. And the fact that they didn’t stink made them good servants for the Fers. Fers were the nobility; they were the most beautiful creatures that had ever walked the face of the earth. And they were also the most powerful ones among the three. The Preenes could never compare to them.

That’s why Jae was still confident. At his level, he could fight one on one with a Fer.

And then, the thing that he’d least expected to happen – _happened_.

After he killed the three that had surrounded him, the first Preene that he thought he had killed already, used his last bit of strength to hold up a gun and aim it at Jae. Before he could even react, it shot him. Jae felt the cold bullet pierce through his flesh, sinking into his heart – stinging but not hurting. He could feel his nerves not functioning properly anymore. Jae hit the ground in sync with the gun that shot him, as it escaped the clutches of the now lifeless blood sucking creature. It’s funny how the vampire spent the last bit of its life pulling the trigger just to kill him. What a heroic deed. Jae wanted to laugh at himself but he had already lost too much blood for that kind of feat. So no, not then, not ever.

In his delirious state, he caught sight of the Asgar staring down at him. What a truly pitiful way of dying. He thought about his life. What had he accomplished? Nothing. Despite of all his achievements as a hunter, it was nothing compared to his dream of making his older brother acknowledge him. Scratch that. He just wanted his loving older brother back. His seven-year-old brother who brought him sweets every afternoon and played with him until dusk. At that time, he was only five, and he never really knew why his brother would only be back at their home in the afternoon and would disappear again at night. When Jae had turned six, Sungjin rarely came home. And he never played with him anymore. When he turned seven, their butler brought him inside the headquarters and there, he finally realized why Sungjin had changed. 

Jae closed his eyes as a tear trickled down the side of his face.

That night, on the other side of the earth where the sun still shone brightly, the humanity, together with the vampires and other faunas, witnessed Venus – the second planet closest to the Sun, glide across its blistering fire oceans.


	3. Overhang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /overhang/  
> \- radar term indicating a region of high reflectivity at middle and upper levels above an area of weak reflectivity at low levels. (The latter area is known as a weak-echo region, or WER.) The overhang is found on the inflow side of a thunderstorm (normally the south or southeast side)

Jae woke up from a strange dream. In his dream, the Asgar had done something outrageous, but he’d been helpless to stop it. His chest had burned in pain by then, due to the lack of oxygen, and it had taken all of him just to take a single breath. But instead of leaving him alone to die in peace, the creature had stripped its own clothing, and had proceeded to totally rip off Jae’s jeans, along with his underwear. Then, for some strange reason Jae hadn’t been able to comprehend (or had refused to comprehend), the Asgar had lifted Jae’s hips off the ground and a foreign object had penetrated his asshole in one powerful shove, before he lost all consciousness.

Everything had been so vivid that he was having a hard time believing it was all just a dream. 

He raised his hands above his face to check his skin. 

It was still the same smooth pale color. 

Based on general knowledge about vampires, once a human engaged in a sexual activity with a vampire, he or she would turn into one, and the vampire's physical appearance will be inherited by the human victim. Jae undoubtedly recognized the vampire as an Asgar – wrinkled skin and foul smell. It only takes about three hours, at most, to transform a human victim into a vampire, so if it hadn’t been just a dream, he should have turned into an Asgar by now. 

With a sigh, he decided to consider everything as just a nightmare and pushed the thought aside, trying to focus on his surroundings instead. 

The humid blades of the grass he was lying on and the mixed blue and red color of the sky indicated that the sun was just about to rise. 

He slowly got up and looked around himself some more. 

Just a few steps away from where he stood were four dead bodies sprawled on the ground, decaying at a relatively fast rate. He recognized them as the Preenes that he’d fought the night before. 

Then, he remembered his bullet wound. 

Jae raised his bloodied shirt to check on it but he couldn’t see it anywhere. The wound was gone. His blood had dried around the left side of his chest but there was no trace of a wound. 

He inspected the rest of his body, only to find that he was completely unharmed. 

Bewildered, he shook his head and tossed the strange feeling away.

When he went back to the headquarters (after successfully acquiring some pants he had snatched from someone’s yard at the foot of the mountain), he was greeted by Wonpil’s younger brother, Dowoon, in the lobby. “Wonpil hyung was looking for you. He said that if I saw you, I should drag your ass to the prison cells. Hmm…” Dowoon paused and scrunched up his nose a bit before continuing, “Something about eradicating pests is what he said.”

Dowoon was a pup and all things cute, with his pouty lips and round sparkling eyes; that is, until you heard him cuss at you with his fresh from the underground voice. 

Jae sighed, “Watch what you’re saying, kiddo. Don’t copy the words that come out of Wonpil’s mouth. All he says is bullshit.” He walked past him, but Dowoon caught his wrist before he could leave. Jae looked at his hand before throwing the young hunter a questioning look.

“Where are you going?” Dowoon asked.

“I’m going to wash up first.”

“No.”

Jae sighed again. “Look, I reek of blood. I want to freshen up a bit before going, okay?” he explained exasperatedly, his free arm raised in the air.

“Wonpil hyung specifically told me I should bring you to your next task at once. Besides, you will still get dirty and bloody in there, so what’s the use of cleaning yourself now?”

The kid had a point, Jae thought. “Okay. Lead the way,” he surrendered as he fixed his coat to cover his not so fitted jeans. 

Everything that happened after Jae and Dowoon reached the prison cells was a blur to Jae. It was as if he was under a spell and his body wasn’t really his. He kept hearing pleading cries and angry voices but they all sounded far away. 

He stared at Dowoon with wide eyes as they stood in the corridor. “W-What did I do?”

“Wow hyung!” Dowoon exclaimed, after a pregnant pause. “It was awesome! That was the most amazing ten-minute show I’ve ever seen. You were very cool.” Dowoons’s eyes sparkled with excitement as he showered Jae with praises.

To this, Jae raised his brows. He knew he was amazing, but Dowoon was exaggerating it a bit too much. He inspected his hands ̶ there wasn’t a clean spot from his fingertips up to his elbows. It was like he had dipped his arms in a bucket of red paint. But it was no paint that trailed down his hands and flooded on the floor. It was a sea of blood. He clenched his jaw at the sight.

“From now on, I won’t call you a lousy hyung anymore. You’ve gained my respect. But…you’re still not as cool as Wonpil hyung,” Dowoon grinned.

Jae huffed. “Wait what? So you’ve been thinking that I’m lousy all this time?”

“Hey. Hey. What are you two talking about behind my back?” It was Wonpil, sporting two semi-automatic pistols holstered up on both sides of his waist. Dowoon bounced towards the new comer when he noticed the guns.

“Hyung! You just got back from completing a mission?”

“More or less. How about you, Jae?”

Jae turned towards his friend and shrugged, “Yeah. I think so.”

“Jae hyung was so cool! He slaughtered all of the vampires in less than ten minutes. Even when one of them begged and cried to be spared, Jae hyung didn’t bat an eye and slashed her throat. And even when around twenty of them charged towards him together, they weren’t even able to land a single blow before they were all lying on the ground with their blood pooling around them.” Every word Dowoon said had a matching huge hand gestures, making it all sound like a scene from some comic he’d just read.

Wonpil nodded his head thoughtfully and hummed in response. “That’s quite impressive Jae. You’ve changed a lot in just a short amount of time. It was only yesterday that you were questioning Chief Park about the need to kill all of the captive vampires, but look at you now.” He showed Jae a toothed smile that didn’t reach his eyes, but Jae was too tired to notice.

He just wondered how his friend knew about his conversation with Sungjin, when he hadn’t mentioned it to him before leaving the night before, and the idea of Sungjin telling Wonpil about insignificant matters such as this was plain preposterous. But he didn’t voice it all because he was already itching to get out of there. The blood on his skin was starting to dry up already and another minute in that state would definitely make him sick, so he excused himself, “I’ll go ahead of you guys. I’m tired and I want to rest as soon as I’m done with my report.”

Inside the shower stall of the common bath, Jae’s loud gasp was heard followed by a scream, muffled by his own hand. 

It was there. 

Inside him. 

The unmistakable white sticky liquid.


	4. Drizzle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /drizzle/  
> \- is a light liquid precipitation consisting of liquid water drops smaller than those of rain – generally smaller than 0.5 mm in diameter. It is normally produced by low stratiform clouds and stratocumulus clouds.

The unsparing morning came without a minute's delay for Jae who had never gotten a wink of sleep. He had spent the entire night reading all of the materials in their database that were related to ‘vampire infection’ ̶ as the hunters called it. He wanted to know what was happening to him. He wanted _\- needed -_ answers. Why was his memory of killing the vampires in the prison cells so hazy? Had he really become a vampire? But why had his appearance remained unchanged? Was it possible for an Asgar to turn his victim into a Fer? 

Of course the fastest way was to ask Sungjin, but what would he say to his brother? _‘You know what hyung? A friend of my officemate’s neighbor’s cousin had semen leaking down his asshole when he showered one morning after he had dreamt of an Asgar vampire shoving his thing inside him the night before. But aside from hazy memories of enjoying slaughter and a vanishing bullet wound, he never showed any signs of vampirism such as blood craving and appearance transformation. Is it safe to assume that the conversion failed?’_ Yeah right. 

He had keyed in all of the related phrases that he could think of, but to no avail. And so, even though he was repulsed by the idea, he typed, ‘vampire reproduction’ as his last try. If he still couldn’t find anything relevant to his case, he would give up. 

After a few seconds, the database showed a little short of a thousand results. And they were all technically the same; every study, every article and every journal he skimmed said the same thing, [The so called infection happens when a human gets involved in a sexual act with a vampire. This vampire act is akin to parents giving birth to their child and they often do this to make their human lovers one of them. Thus, the transformed human will inherit the said vampire’s characteristics and then some or all of the vampire’s skills.] 

There was not a single record documenting an Asgar ‘giving birth’ to a Fer; not in their records anyway. But if hundreds-of-centuries old hunter’s history didn’t show this kind of case then there’s no reason why Jae should become the first one. He’s nothing special. He’s just a minute existence even in his older brother’s eyes. And besides, if he really had become a vampire, he should have that white ash wrinkled skin, those bulging eyes and white hair, similar to the vampire that had taken advantage of him when he was at his weakest. Chances are, the Asgar had failed to transform him or he had just imagined everything because he had been too tired at that time. The disappearance of his wound and destroyed jeans were topics he could worry about later. 

Jae stretched his arms up in the air and let out a yawn before closing the lid of his laptop. It was already five thirty and he still needed to be at his ‘day work’ at nine. Three hours of sleep sounded heavenly so he dove under the covers after mouthing a “good night” to his best friend, who was still soundly asleep in the comfort of his own bed. If worse comes to worst, Wonpil would definitely be the first person Jae would run to.

Since Jae had been busy with work, a whole day went by in a flash and the night came. After closing a deal with a client, Jae was in high spirits as he joked around with his sales partner, Jimin, on their way towards the parking lot.

Jimin was his only friend outside of the hunter’s association. He had met her when he'd first applied in the company, and back then, she'd been his rival for the only available position ̶ the head director’s secretary. But fate must've played a bad joke on them, because they were both accepted as a sales agent. The hiring personnel had somehow discovered their hidden capabilities as a seller when they'd both started to ‘sell’ themselves to the interviewer saying that one was better than the other.

"Ah...that Mr. Lee really made us work our asses off. Why was he so hard to convince?!" Jimin complained, pouting. 

Jae suppressed his laughter. It was obvious that Jimin was famished, because that’s the only thing that could piss her off that much. 

She continued, "Good thing that you were able to make him agree at the last minute."

"It's all thanks to me right?" Jae grinned as he raised his chin up in the air, waiting for Jimin’s never-happening-in-this-lifetime acknowledgement.

She clicked her tongue, "Ah. I shouldn’t have said that. I take it back."

"Not a chance."

Jae was still laughing as he opened the door to the driver’s seat of their company car, when a deafening shriek erupted from out of nowhere.

"W-What was that?" Jimin asked in a hushed voice.

Jae didn't have a good feeling about this, so he played it cool and dismissed it. "It's better not to get involved." 

Too late. 

Jimin had already raced towards the direction where the cry had come from. 

"Shit!" Jae cursed as he slammed the car door shut and sprinted after his friend. “Why is she always so fast when doing stupid things?” After a few stops and turns ̶ because of all the parked cars blocking his way ̶ he finally found Jimin, standing paralyzed, jaw slacked as she glued her eyes on a certain couple standing at a distance.

Due to the poor lighting, at first glance, it looked like a guy was pinning a woman on the wall, kissing her neck fervently while the woman returned the favor. But the unmistakable blood that was dyeing the white polo shirt of the guy red made it obvious that the woman was a vampire and she was feeding on him.

"Oh my god, she's killing him." Jimin said under her breath, her voice muffled by the hand she'd held up against her mouth. She was about to take a step to approach the couple, but for once, Jae was faster. He mumbled a quick “Sorry James” before pressing an artery in between her neck and shoulder with the right amount of pressure to knock her unconscious. When her knees gave out, Jae caught her and laid her down on the concrete floor where they stood.

The vampire had let go of her victim. She was now staring at Jae, gaging him. Her once smooth skin slowly returned to its wrinkled state and her black hair faded until it became white but her eyes remained sharp.

Jae pulled out two daggers from under his coat. In that part of the parking lot where the lamp from the distant lamppost wasn't really effective against the darkness of the night, the weapons’ sharp edges glistened as if thirsty for blood.

The vampire, who had at first appeared ready to stand her ground, stepped back upon recognizing her opponent. The moment her eyes darted somewhere else looking for an exit, Jae took action. He closed the gap between them in a flash and raised both daggers in the air. The vampire wasn't even able to turn her eyes back towards him and her heart had already been carved out of her chest.

It all happened in a blink of an eye.

The vampire's body dropped on the floor with a thud. Her blood gushed out of her open chest, soaking her clothes wet, before making a small pool around her.

Jae stumbled backwards as he stared at the still beating organ skewered in his knife in utter disbelief. Everything that'd happened wasn't a blur anymore. He definitely saw how his surroundings began to slow down and he found himself taking his sweet time digging the vampire's heart out.

The man that lay motionless on the ground just moments ago grunted. Jae immediately gathered his senses and dropped his knives along with its newly acquired prize to tend to him.

“Are you still alive? I saved you just now,” Jae said as he squatted beside the wounded man.

It seemed that the man didn’t hear him though, because instead of gratefulness, the man showed pure fear and horror. "N-no, p-please let me live." The man begged with tears pooling in his eyes. "I'm sorry for taking a pass at your girl. Was she your girl? But I swear I didn’t ̶ I didn't do anything to harm her.” He threw a glance at the unfamiliar creature sprawled a few steps away from them. “I-It wasn’t me. If it's money that you want, I can give it to you."

"What are you talking about?" Jae leaned forward and inspected the fresh blade wound on the man's neck. "Hmm...She made a seamless cut here I see."

The man tried to get up. He struggled to break free from the iron grip on his shoulders that held him in place. 

But it was all in vain. 

He could not move at all. 

The man gulped the lump on his throat and slowly met the eyes of the creature that was holding him. The eyes that stared back at him weren’t those of a human ̶ red pupils with contrasting blue irises, glowing in the night. "I-I will give you anything. J-just spare me," he begged once more when he realized struggling was futile.

Jae smiled. "You're mistaken sir. I don't know that woman at all." After saying this, his smile turned into a smirk. "You will give me anything you say? Well, how about this sweet red liquid on your neck?” he asked while tracing the knife wound with his pale index finger. “Do you think you can give me some of it?"

The man's cry didn't last very long.

The image of a silver haired creature straddling a helpless human while having its fill was reflected on a lone dusty convex mirror, hanging at a corner of the poorly lit parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited work is a bad idea but i'm bad so sure, it was a bad idea.


	5. Tempest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /tempest/  
> \- a violent windstorm, especially one with rain, hail or snow.

The sound of the stone hitting the steel window frame roused Wonpil from his slumber. He slipped a hand under his pillow for his gun as he jumped off the bed and leaned close to the wall; all in one breath. 

He was on his tiptoes, inching closer and closer to the source of the noise, sharpening his senses, when his phone lit up in the midst of the darkness that was his (and Jae’s) room. He’s not a coward but he admitted that the damned device surprised the shit out of him. ¬

He was contemplating whether to pick it up or not when it produced a buzzing sound. Someone was calling him in the dead of the night so it must have had to be about something important. Well, it better be more important than the stone that woke him up. Not letting go of his gun, he took a couple of quick steps and picked his phone up from his side table but the call had already ended.

Two notifications. 

A missed call and a new message. 

All from Jae. 

[I need your help. Come down for a minute.]

Pocketing his phone, Wonpil went back to the window and inserted the tip of his gun in between the slats of the blinds before he peered outside through the gap it created. Fortunately, he was only on the fifth floor so a little squinting was all it took him to see a crouching figure of a man leaning on the wall of an abandoned building that stood across theirs.

The lush leaves of a nearby overgrowing tree casted a shadow on the man so it was hard to judge if Wonpil knew him or not. He squinted a little more until his eyes formed into slits but he still couldn’t identify him.

Thankfully, before Wonpil’s eyes could totally disappear (from squinting too much); a gentle breeze swept the shadows away for a moment before they eased back to their previous stance, covering the man once again. But a short glimpse was all it took for Wonpil to recognize the all too familiar mop of brown hair. It was Jae. But what was he doing there? Why didn’t he come up? And holy shit, was he the one who threw the stone? From there? Wonpil couldn’t believe it unless Jae had used some sort of sling equipped with a homing feature.

Wonpil hurriedly shrugged on the coat he picked up from the back of his chair and raced outside in his pajamas and slippers. He slowed down a little and smiled at the group of three hunters who obviously just came back from work when they gave him a weird look after seeing his outfit before he sprinted again towards the exit of the building. 

It only took him a minute to reach Jae, not his best record but he tried. “What kind of shady business is it this time?” Wonpil asked in a hushed tone after making sure that nobody else was within earshot.

Jae’s bloodshot eyes stared intently at Wonpil’s for a moment before he finally spoke. “Wasn’t I impressive?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Wonpil asked exasperatedly.

“I threw a stone at our window which was on the fifth floor from across the road.”

Wonpil wasn’t having any of Jae’s midnight bullshit. “I figured as much. Cool. So what were you trying to prove?”

Completely ignoring Wonpil’s obvious impatience, Jae continued what he wanted to say in a relaxed tone. “I can also move faster than before. And my strength multiplied.” Jae paused before he continued in a much weaker voice now. “And I think I’m in big trouble.” 

Wonpil instinctively took a step backwards. “What kind of big trouble are we talking about here?”

“A trouble that can kill. Please help me,” Jae’s voice was crisp with desperation. If Wonpil wasn’t looking directly at his face at that moment, he might have thought that Jae was crying.

Jae leaned forward and grabbed Wonpil’s shoulders before asking again, “Can you help me?”

Wonpil flinched when the rusty smell of human blood wafted his nose. He was rushing too much that he failed to notice the all too familiar smell. The smell that could never be washed away from someone who had drank it. Like a curse, it lingers. Hunters were trained from a young age to catch this scent from three meters away in an open space and ten to twenty meters away when inside a closed building like inside their headquarters. So that’s the reason why Jae didn’t come up. Clenching his fist, Wonpil calmly spoke, “First and foremost, you need to hide inside our room. I will make sure that no one will see you on your way there and no one can go near you.” 

Jae’s eyes lit up. He removed his hands from Wonpil’s shoulders, “How?”

“Wait here for ten minutes before going in. I can make something up to gather all of the hunters in the main training hall. There’s no time to spare. I need to go and prepare everything for your safe escape. Remember not to let anyone else enter our room okay? Not even Chief Park. Just wait in there for my return.”

Jae nodded.

Wonpil took off his coat and wrapped it around his friend. “Be careful,” he said one last time before leaving.

***

Every little sound made Jae’s heart race. Earlier when he was outside, he felt calm and collected despite having his head in the clouds. Ironically enough, now that he was inside his own room, he felt unsafe. Was it because he was now considered as an enemy of the place that he called his home?

He had become a vampire. 

He was certain of it.

He was too shocked when he found himself in the middle of sucking blood from a dying man that his brain short-circuited and he fainted right away. Then about an hour ago, he came back to his senses only to find himself still squatting on the concrete floor inside the parking lot but the dying man had already somehow disappeared.

 _‘No matter what the reason may be, once a hunter becomes a vampire, he needs to kill himself right away. That’s the vampire hunter’s number one rule,’_ his father’s words kept on ringing in his ears as he sat on his bed, hugging his knees close to his chest. He knew that he had to do the right thing but he’s a coward. He didn’t want to die. He would clutch on any minute hope if it meant that he could still live. 

There were shuffling noises right outside of the door. 

Now shivering feverishly, Jae held his breath. A slight and startling tingle tiptoed down his spine as the door clicked at the snap of a key. Jae didn’t tear his gaze off from the door as it slowly opened, revealing Wonpil. A ton of weight was lifted off Jae’s chest when he saw his friend’s face. 

But a rush of fear washed over him when he saw another man closely following his friend. 

There were two gunshots and when Jae looked down, blood was spilling from both of his legs.

Dismissing the pain, Jae pushed himself up and ran for the window but thanks to his wounds, Wonpil caught up to him quite easily. 

“What is the meaning of this?! Wonpil I trusted you!” Jae yelled as he thrashed around, trying to break free from his friend’s hold.

“Don’t move!” Wonpil ordered as he pressed a knife on Jae’s neck.

Jae stood still as the blade sat on his skin. Wonpil had controlled the pressure not to pierce him but he held it strong enough to deliver his intended message. The harsh metal should have been cold and raw against Jae’s bare skin but he could not feel anything except for the devastating pain of his friend’s betrayal. His life was at stake but all he could do was stare lifelessly at the black cold eyes of his roommate.

Trembling, Jae tipped his chin up into the sharpened edge, tempting Wonpil to just end his anguish. Dying at his supposed-to-be-friend’s hands wasn’t that painful anymore now that Jae thought about it. He was a vampire after all and his “friend” was a hunter. 

A small stream of blood trickled from the feeble cut but Wonpil didn’t as much blink. Jae’s frozen heart shifted at the sight of his friend’s merciless gaze and his wounded legs almost failed beneath him. 

From Jae’s peripheral vision, two more hunters entered the room. One of them produced a syringe filled with transparent liquid. 

Jae’s eyes went wide at the sight of the apparatus. “No!!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs but it fell into deaf ears. The needle sank into his skin and he instantly felt his strength leave his body. 

Wonpil moved his knife away from Jae’s neck only to yank his arms and lock them on his back. “What is the meaning of this you ask? You should know what this means Park Jae,” he hissed next to Jae’s ears.

Jae didn’t say anything. Rather, he couldn’t. Words failed to express what he wanted to say. Curses wouldn’t suffice and talking trash wouldn’t make him feel any better.

Three more men entered the room. They swiftly cuffed his wrists and ankles while his “friend” pinned him down. He didn’t struggle anymore. It was of no use anyway. He just smiled bitterly as a single drop of liquid dribbled from his eye.


	6. Rain Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /rain shower/  
> \- a short period of rain

Careful not to make too much noise, Brian gritted his teeth as he placed a tentative first step on the galvanized roof that spread right under the window of his room. The thin piece of metal made a crunching sound upon receiving Brian’s entire weight but thankfully, it wasn’t so loud — or he just hoped so. He didn’t disturb his grandmother’s nap, right? After contemplating whether to check on her or not, he closed the window that he’d been sitting on for hours and jumped down. She probably didn’t hear that. Or did.

“You can’t go today.”

Okay. Did.

Brian turned towards the direction of the soft, yet commanding voice. Of course it was his grandmother. She was sitting on her favorite rocking chair by their front door, running her bony fingers along her long white hair that reached the floor on her feet.

He opened his mouth to say that he was just visiting his parents but she immediately cut him off. 

“Not tonight Brian. Fers and Preenes are all over the place. It is not safe for us Asgars to roam around. A small mistake will cost us our lives. You know that.”

He sighed and trailed towards her. He sat on the wooden floor at the foot of her chair and fiddled with his earth-beaten toes for a bit before raising his head, “They don’t usually come here so why would they be here tonight gramma?” 

In South Korea, Asgars lived in remote places of rural areas. Away from humanity and from other vampire groups. Sure Asgars could also live together with Preenes and Fers; that is if they could get their hands to some Myrema, a drug that could get rid of the rusty smell of blood in their system and medicines that could temporarily remove their natural Asgar stench. But these remedies cost a fortune; families like Brian’s could only afford to buy a handful every year. And they only take them on important occasions that require them to get close to Preenes and Fers, or when it was unavoidable to go to public places. Because aside from the danger of provoking a Fer, there’s another entity that they should look out for — the vampire hunters. Brian hadn’t encountered one yet but according to his grandmother, they were perilous creatures that disguise themselves as humans. They exist solely to kill.

Brian was troubled that he could not go watch the sunset. It was a daily routine he had developed after losing both of his parents to a vampire hunter twenty years ago. Every day, he would sit by their graves on top of the hill at the back of their house and watch the sun go. The sunset reminded him of his parents’ love for him. Unlike the morning sun that burned his skin, the sunset was gentle and heartwarming. 

She extended her hand and caressed his face. “I am not sure why but they will be everywhere,” her calloused fingertips traced the cursed lines that decorated Brian’s skin as if trying to memorize them. 

He leaned in to her touch.

She cupped Brian’s right cheek. “Do you want to hear an old story?”

Brian nodded vigorously.

She chuckled. “Did you know, a hundred years ago, we Asgars freely mingled with Fers and Preenes without fearing for our lives?”

Interested at the new piece of knowledge, Brian edged a little closer. “Did we?” 

“Yes. And it was all thanks to Lady Violet.” She took out an old picture from her purse and gave it to Brian. 

The girl on the picture looked gorgeous but at the same time deadly. She had deep set eyes that looked like they could suck away your soul. Her lips formed a thin line across her diamond shaped face. And her hair was tied up in a ponytail which highlighted her edgy jaws. “She is so pretty,” Brian mused. 

His grandmother smiled. Pride evident in her wrinkly eyes. “She was our Sefol a hundred years ago. She believed that all vampires, no matter what group they belong to, should have the right to live without restriction and constant fear. She had led our race through countless of victorious battles against humans that they eventually agreed to sign a treaty not to hurt a single vampire and vice versa as long as Lady Violet lived.” She paused. “So she died. By the hand of her most loved human.” Her voice dropped significantly at the last sentence. 

Brian placed a hand over his grandmother’s. 

She smiled at him. “It’s been a hundred years and tonight, a new Sefol will appear. The Fers will finally be able to regain their full strengths by sunrise and the same is true with the Preenes.”

“Then how about us gramma?” 

“Do you know why the Fers and the Preenes are significantly much more powerful than us?”

Brian shook his head.

“It’s because they can stay under the sun much longer than we can. The sunlight is the source of the vampire’s strength. But since we cannot expose ourselves to it long enough to actually replenish our power, we resort to drinking blood which contains a similar type of nutrient that we can get from the sunlight. But with the aid of the Sefol’s core, Fers and Preenes can stay even longer under the sun.”

“I didn’t understand everything you’ve said gramma but how about us? Can we also go outside and stay under the sun starting tomorrow?” 

His grandmother placed her other hand on top of Brian’s and gently squeezed it. “My boy, I am so sorry but we Asgars can only go outside a maximum of one hour before the sunset. And the nutrient that we will get won’t be enough to substantially increase our strength.”

“Really?!” He didn’t really care about gaining more strength. He could lift ten wild boars without breaking a sweat and that’s more than enough. His grandmother could probably even lift thirty. What got him excited in the first place was the fact that he could finally watch the sunset a little longer. He needed to be there and witness the birth of the new Sefol. It would be a fantastic sight he’s sure of it. But where? Where would the new Sefol appear? He cleared his throat. “Who will be the new Sefol? Will it be a Fer?”

“There’s no way of telling who will be the next Sefol but, the Fers are the most likely to become one. Since the beginning of the vampire history, all of the Sefols were Fers.”

Brian nodded thoughtfully. 

Later that night, Brian jumped out of the window of his room and disappeared into the darkness. If a vampire as great as the Lady Violet that his grandmother talked about will be born, and that the core on him or her would allow Brian to have an hour long of sunshine, he needed to be there to witness everything. And the place where the Fers would most likely be celebrating at, would be the biggest and the grandest hotel in Seoul. The V hotel. A hotel owned by a Fer. And that’s where he headed.

Somewhere inside a small forest on a hill directly facing the said building, Brian found a good spot on top of a tall sturdy tree. From the branch that he had perched on, he spotted a particular densely populated event room on the fifth floor. The transparent glass walls hid nothing from his eyes.

He settled at a good distance away from the hotel and from any road leading to it, afraid that a Fer might catch a wind of his presence. But when more and more vampires filled the room, his curiosity got the better of him and he hopped down and got closer to get a better view. The room was fully packed now. Stunning Fers in their tuxedos and long gowns filled the entire hall. They were talking merrily to each other while holding a glass of refined blood.

Brian heard rustles from behind him. It seemed like he wasn’t the only curious Asgar tonight; he thought when a strong familiar odor wafted his nose. 

He returned his attention back on the hotel. The vampires inside the hall had stopped their idle talk and were focused on one certain direction. Brian followed suit. What greeted his eyes was a woman in a stunning red gown with long jet black hair. Her skin glimmered against the night lights. She was saying something to her audience. After delivering her short speech (Brian figured it was a speech of some sort), she raised her own glass high in the air and for a fraction of a second, Brian felt his windpipe being crushed when their eyes met. She caught him spying. And she surely didn’t like him. 

He started running for his life. 

He ran and ran. Through the thick mountain forest, across the fields and along short rivers. He could no longer feel his feet but the Preenes were still on his tracks. He didn’t have any idea how many of them were running after him but he was sure that there were at least three. If he got caught, he will definitely die. His lungs were burning and he could physically feel the veins on his temples bulging, desperate to deliver scrap oxygen to his brain.

It was when he was about to cross the borderline of Seoul and a city of the Northwest side Goyang, that he noticed the lack of presence of his pursuers. They gave up? No, that would be impossible. His grandmother clearly told him that Preenes never let any of their prey go. He slowed down to think and shortly, he heard a single gunshot. 

The Preenes had encountered someone else? Was it another Asgar? Was it the Asgar that he had sensed back there in front of the hotel before? What were the odds that a fellow Asgar had followed him? Or was it someone he knew? What if it was his grandmother? What if she had followed him? When the thought came to him, he ran back like a madman without a second thought. Tears were already stinging his eyes as he fought his own thoughts drowning into more agonizing images. Not his grandmother. He would die without her. Why was he so stupidly stubborn? 

But the scene that greeted him when he finally arrived at the place where he heard the gunshot came from left him speechless. The one who saved him wasn’t his grandmother (to his great relief). It wasn’t an Asgar either. 

It was a human. 

And the human was dying. 

Brian didn’t know what to do. The human definitely saved his life. He had to do something to save him somehow.

And for an Asgar like him, there was one and only way.

Brian clumsily removed the human’s lower garments after removing his own. He offered some indiscernible apologies (he couldn’t understand what he was saying either) before proceeding with the act. 

He planted him his essence. 

His vampire essence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> frances alam mo na kung sino ka. hahaha. salamat ^^


	7. Cloudburst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /cloudburst/  
>  \- a sudden heavy fall of rain

Jae thought that he’d be executed right away but three days had already passed since he was dragged and confined inside a prison cell ̶ the same prison cell that held the vampires he had slaughtered just a few days ago. But unlike them who were allowed to stand and sit on their own, he was fully immobilized. His only source of nutrition was some pills he was forced to swallow every morning. He didn’t even had the luxury to sleep because his hands were bound by razor sharp metal cuffs, so sharp that a slight tug could potentially cut his wrist off. Both ankles were chained and bound to a u-shaped metal anchored on the marble floor. Using his enhanced strength, he tried many times to pull it off but failed. The metal must be a special alloy that was furthermore reinforced with more metal structures underground.

Pathetic. That’s what he was. A hunter that became a vampire. Why? Where had he gone wrong? Jae asked his self as he fought the urge to cry. He had cried enough. He had cried in sorrow towards the thing he had become. Just why did that Asgar turn him into a vampire? Was it the price he had to pay for killing their kind? And why did he not turn into an Asgar? Why was he a Fer?

Jae had also cried in anger towards his supposed to be best friend. Why was he so stupid? Did he really think that Wonpil would neglect his duty as a vampire hunter for him? Preposterous, now that he thought of it again. Kim Wonpil was the descendant of the most famous hunter bloodline. The very blood of Kim Jeongshin who had killed his lover for the sake of humanity ran in Wonpil’s veins. Jae should have known better, right? Still, was he really nothing to him? Then what about all those times they saved each other’s asses from near death experiences? Were they just nothing to him? Was Wonpil’s heart made of steel? Jae was only pulled from his thoughts when he noticed the guards outside performed a ninety degree bow. Just who had arrived to receive such respect? Probably one of the members of the upper echelons finally here to inform him of his long awaited demise. 

No one had ever paid him a visit—not that he was hoping someone would. Sungjin probably didn’t even bother to offer a single comment upon hearing the news about him. His parents might have had thought about helping him but then threw the thought away a split of a second later. Their clan had a name to uphold. His parents wouldn’t dare put their hunter lineage at risk. They might have had even suggested to the council to kill Jae right away, ‘for humanity’s sake’ as they often call it. And he couldn’t really blame them. Who would save someone like him? A hunter turned vampire? He was an idiot for getting himself vampirized. It was all his fault.

A white lab coat.

Jae’s heart raced. 

His brother, Park Sungjin came.

He actually came.

Jae thought he had lost all hope after Wonpil’s betrayal but the warmth that spread in his heart at the thought of his brother freeing him told him otherwise.

But the flicker of hope was extinguished just as quickly as it blossomed when he saw his brother’s set cold face.

“Did they give you food to eat?” Sungjin said without meeting his eyes. Jae doubted it if he really cared. As usual, his voice lacked any sort of emotion. 

Jae didn’t respond. 

Sungjin continued. “You will be transferred to a cleaner room today. Please behave accordingly.”

His brother turned to the guards and gave instructions in muffled words. Only the words ‘laboratory’ and ‘experiment’ reached his ears but it was enough to make his bones tremble in fear. 

Sungjin was known for creating highly effective shots against vampires thanks to his years of researches. And only god knows what kind of inhumane experiments he was doing inside his main laboratory where no one except him and his ‘subjects’ could enter. Jae was only able to see it once and it was way back when he first entered the headquarters’ training facility. That time, the seven year old Jae had been excited to see his brother so he had asked around until he found Sungjin’s mini laboratory and what Jae saw had made him throw up. Vampire limbs of different lengths and sizes had been lined up on top of a table and standing on the far edge was the nine year old Sungjin, sporting a blank face covered with blood while inspecting a dismembered finger. 

His brother left and the guards opened the door to his cell. One of them was holding a syringe containing a liquid identical with the one he was injected with when they caught him.

“N-No. No. Please.” Jae’s voice cracked as he begged with tears threatening to break free from his eyes. He struggled, blood oozed generously from his wrists until he felt the tip of the needle prick his skin then everything went black.

A blinding light greeted Jae’s eyes when he opened them. It took him a couple of seconds to adjust and realize that he was lying on a bed. On his right, he noticed active monitors beeping and making buzzing sounds. Graphs and running lines of green and red dominated the screens. There were three of them but he couldn’t make out what they were for. He turned to look at his left. A white table on the far end corner caught his attention. Scalpels and scissors of different sizes and shapes were laid out on top of it along with countless bottles and syringes. 

A cold splash of wave hit him. 

He automatically tried to get up but he wasn’t even able to as much raise his chin. His hands and feet were free but his torso was completely bound to the bed. He tried to rip off the single piece of white cloth until his hands bled but he couldn’t even make it stretch. 

The door beside the table opened and Sungjin emerged from it. “Don’t even think of escaping from here. Even if you miraculously rip that bondage apart, the alarm will set off and a hundred of guards outside I personally handpicked will be alerted.”

“H-Hyung! Please. Let me go.”

Sungjin picked up a syringe and pumped out a drop. “Let you go? This is the first time that I got a hold of a vampire with a hunter’s blood. Just be thankful that I was able to have you as my specimen. If not, you would have been dead already.”

When Jae saw his brother walking towards him while holding the syringe in the air, he froze. “W-What will you do to me?”

“Please relax. This drug will just make you unable to move but surely all of your senses won’t get affected. Don’t worry too much. The pain will be bearable for now. I just need the data on how fast your neurons will react to certain levels of pain and how long will you be able to stay conscious.” Sungjin explained as he pricked Jae’s vein on the neck.

Tears finally fell down Jae’s face. His lips quivered as he tried to plead in an almost inaudible voice. “D-Did Mom and Dad agree to this?” 

“Why not? My research will ultimately help hunters in exterminating vampires like you.” Sungjin produced a scalpel out of his pocket. “Be honored that you are still able to help humanity even in your despicable state.” He calmly said before making a fresh cut on Jae’s already wounded leg without a warning.

Just as Sungjin said, Jae couldn’t move a muscle but he felt the pain and the wet sound that the blade created while cutting his flesh seemed louder than normal. He gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to let out a cry. He didn’t want to become more pathetic than he already was. He bit his lip until it bled. The image of his brother’s stone face burned in his head as the blackness finally consumed him once again.


	8. Puddle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /puddle/  
> \- a small pool of liquid on the ground, especially from rain.

Although it had already been almost a week since Brian woke up lost inside a room he had never seen before, wearing a face he was not able to readily recognize as his own, just by existing itself still felt strange for him. It was the same strange feeling he had when he slid off the foreign bed for the first time, trying to take in his surroundings. Like he was there but at the same time, he was not. At first he blamed it on the change of his appearance; gone was his Asgar face—the wrinkled skin was replaced with a smooth one, akin to that of a fine white porcelain masterpiece. But after a few days of feeling like there was something amiss, he had settled with the idea that he was not whole. That half of him was missing. It was a random thought that popped up inside his head while waiting for sleep to take over him and it just felt right that he had to believe it.

The instruction that Brian has found on top of the table that morning was fairly simple. ‘Go find three red roses in the garden and put them in a vase.’ If he had seen the same paper six days ago, he would definitely not be able to read half of it not to mention execute them. As an orphan that grew up with his grandmother who never found reading and writing useful, Brian’s reading comprehension was way below average to the say the least. 

When compared to the set of instruction he had first received on his first day of studying (which was to put on a pair of slippers), harvesting roses and arranging them on the vase was way more complex. That’s why when he placed the last stem in the glass jar; he smiled proudly at his reflection on the life sized mirror in front of him. He moved his hand to brush away stray strands of silver hair (previously ash in color) that covered his eyes when the gentle breeze blew from the half opened window, a set of electric blue irises stared back at him—inquisitively. What happened to the old Brian? He only remembered running back to his pursuers before abruptly injecting his semen into a dying man that saved him. What happened to that man? 

Dropping his hand to his side, Brian let out a sigh. He had a lot of questions and he had a lot of things he wanted to do instead of being a plaything to a certain Fer. He badly wanted to check on his grandmother. To make sure that she’s alright. That she’s not worried about him. But who was he trying to fool? His gramma was surely worried sick about him by now. He needed to see her.

“Brian?”

A soft feminine voice pulled out Brian from his thoughts.

The scent of jasmine filled the room as the owner of the voice walked towards him. “Wow you did well! These roses are lovely.” The woman gestured towards the flowers in front of the flustered vampire.

Brian fought the urge to squirm. He should know better than to make the woman in front of him become suspicious so he smiled, “Thank you very much for your kind words Ji—err…James. Sorry.”

It was hard to imagine that the same person who had sent pursuers after him was also the master of the mansion that he was currently taking shelter in, the one who dressed and fed him; the one teaching him how to read. That’s right. The woman standing in front of him was no other than the council head of the Fers, Im Jimin or as she had emphasized on several occasions to Brian, James—the very same woman in red gown that caught him loitering near the Fer vicinity on that fateful night. She would definitely behead him the second she would realize that he was actually (originally) an Asgar. Brian still didn’t understand the reason why she picked him up and brought him to her home without questioning him of his origin. She just told him that she saw him lying unconscious that’s why she helped him. Her jade green eyes twinkled against the natural lightings of the room as she looked at him. Up close, Brian realized that she looked awfully familiar—sharp jaws with commanding aura emanating from her eyes. He wracked his brain but he couldn’t remember where he saw someone like that.

“Finally! It wasn’t that hard calling me James right? Anyway,” she took hold of Brian’s wrist and pulled him towards the door she came from, “let’s go have breakfast. I’m famished.”

Brian just let himself be dragged down the stairs and into the dining hall. He would definitely find time later to brainstorm how he could visit his grandmother without raising suspicions. 

***

Every day for three days straight, without a miss, Sungjin performed agonizing experiments on Jae. 

At first, Jae tried not to react to any pain; tried not to move a muscle on his face. But after some time, the multiple cuts and lacerations became unbearable. He didn’t bother putting up front anymore. He would always cry out in pain before blacking out. But once he opened his eyes again, all of his wounds would have already disappeared without a trace and then two or three minutes later, Sungjin would somehow materialize out of nowhere and recreate his wounds. The cycle repeated until Jae didn’t beg to be freed anymore. He just wanted to die. But unfortunately, that was also impossible as he was at the complete mercy of his brother who was almost always present during his waking hours.

Every time Jae opened his eyes as he regained his consciousness, he couldn’t help but hope that he would find himself inside his shared room with Wonpil again, with his friend already making his share of bad morning coffee. But the reality strikes him hard anyways. He was still bound on the bed. His surroundings remained the same: beeping apparatus, blinking monitors, scattered instruments and papers. Nothing new. It wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t inside a nightmare. Everything that happened had indeed happened. He was a vampire now and was further reduced into a lab rat. Defeated, he stilled his head and waited. He already knew by heart that his brother would arrive soon to cut him open somewhere more painful and slice his flesh deeper to dig into his bones. Sungjin was relentless to the point that Jae was surprised his eyes and tongue still remained intact. Day after day, his desire to die and his hatred for his brother grew by tenfold simultaneously. He swore that if he could get out of this alive, he would definitely kill his brother in the most painful death possible. Him and Kim Wonpil. They deserved death. Not that Jae didn’t. He would kill himself too right after killing them of course. But that was only if he could escape from there which was next to impossible.

About five minutes had already passed but there was no Park Sungjin. 

Jae felt uneasy. Sungjin was never late.

Five minutes became an hour and a half. Jae stared hard at the digital clock on top of the unmoving door. Was the experiment on him already complete? Was Sungjin done with him? Did the association still have any use for him? Countless questions flooded his mind and they were all blaring a single warning: he would be killed. Soon.

That would be for the best then. He wanted to die and they would finally give that to him. But a part of him wanted to escape. He grabbed the cloth like material that was wrapped around his torso so he could rip it apart. Grunting, beads of sweat formed on Jae’s forehead and he could see fresh blood seeping through the cloth caused by his bleeding hands. He was afraid that his hand would tear first instead of the cloth.

After trying numerous times, Jae gave up. He couldn’t tear it with brute force. The material must have been made to resist any form of tensile stress. If only he had something sharp to cut it, he thought as his eyes landed on the scissors perched on top of the table to his far left. _If only I could get my hands on that._

The scissors slid across the table, towards him before it dropped on the floor.

Jae blinked twice.

The scissors had moved on its own. He scanned the room for another presence but there was none. Was he the one who did that? With racing heartbeat, he stared at the scissors on the floor and thought about making it float in the air and fly towards him. 

And it did.

The scissors landed on his hand, the sharp tip stabbed on his waiting palm before he could grab it. Jae winced as he looked at the scissors on his hand. It was really him. He had acquired a power from the vampire that transformed him. And a telekinesis one at that. It was one of the rarest abilities. If he could remember correctly, only one out of one thousand vampires had telekinesis and most of them could only move objects they have already touched with their palms beforehand so they weren’t that much of a threat. But that didn’t seem to be the case for Jae. He wondered how wide was the radius of effectivity of the powers and up to how much weight he could move.

Jae blinked again. It was not the time to ponder. He needed to escape first. The scissors snipped on the cloth like it was paper and in a matter of seconds, Jae was free. His first instinct was to go for the door but his more rational mind went against it so he decided to go for the ceiling. Hopefully, the ducting pipes would be wide enough for him to crawl through because if not, he would be damned.

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	9. Pluvial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /pluvial/  
> \- a modern climate characterized by relatively high precipitation, or an interval of time of variable length – decades to thousands of years – during which a climate is characterized by either relatively high precipitation or humidity.

The scissors fell on the floor with a clang and the white piece of cloth that had bound Jae splayed on both sides. He sat up, but then regretted doing the movement way too soon. 

Everything around him danced, and he had to shut his eyes close for two seconds until the membrane inside his skull that was his brain could steady itself again.

When he felt that his neurons had finally aligned themselves again enough to function properly, he stilled and heightened his senses for any presence. 

_Three. Two. One._

No one. 

Not a soul. 

Jae looked up and tried to find any place where Sungjin could hide any sensors. His brother had blatantly informed him before that guards would come running once he left the room. So for the scrap moments that he was kind of conscious, he had tried to locate any possible hidden cameras (because there were none in plain sight) and some form of heat sensors, but he found none. 

He glanced at the closed door, then at the meter wide ventilation on the ceiling. 

_This should work._

He gulped but grimaced as he felt sand rub his throat. The last time he had water was at least about two days ago when Sungjin poured a glass of it on his face to wake him up.

The floor felt cold against his bare feet, he almost fell right back on the bed when he stood up. Moving about was new to his week-long stagnant body. 

After wobbling left and right twice, Jae finally gathered his bearings. He walked towards the spot right under his target escape route. 

Using air ducts to infiltrate the enemy’s lair undetected or to escape imprisonment was popular in action movies, but in those movies, the heroes or heroines have always dressed adequately while Jae was almost butt-naked. And unlike in the movies where the ducts get sanitized and secured of any potential skin hazards, the one above him was as real as shit could be. He only hoped that the maintenance personnel did their job properly the last time they cleaned. 

He hugged his bare chest and looked around for anything that he could cover himself with. 

Nothing. 

Sungjin’s laboratory was as naked as Jae, who only had his boxers on. The room only had the bondage that he snipped apart to offer. His sorry excuse for a bed was a frosty glass table with a dipping hollow on top that served as the bowl for his head to rest.

That’s it. He would escape naked then.

Four bolts were fastening the cover on the ceiling and Jae knew for sure that working them loose would take more time than just prying the cover open with brute force so obviously, he went for the latter option. The cover gave quickly. Jae jumped and grabbed on the jotted handles and the cover just cracked against his weight before it broke into pieces, the plastic shards fell onto the floor, some hitting his feet.

He didn’t waste time and clambered up the opening he created. 

Once inside the square tunnel of steel plate, Jae crawled forward, aimless. He didn’t know where to go. Who the hell in their right mind would memorize the ducting layout of their goddamned fifty-floored building, taking into account the upper and ground floors? But he’d manage. Because he should.

His lean body fit just right inside the closed space. He edged himself forward using his elbows tucked close to his chest while his spread toes frantically sought friction on the smooth surface of the steel plates. After repeating the same action for about five minutes, he turned towards the first corner he encountered to his right and struggled his way through the sharp curve. A much darker space ahead that seemed to stretch eternally greeted him but he had no other choice, he had to push himself forward if he wanted to get out of there. 

He hissed when he felt his knees sting—a protruding edge must have cut his skin there. As he continued, he felt more cuts forming on his thighs, his hips, his toes. Actually, his entire body was stinging but fuck it; they were just mosquito bites when compared to what Sungjin had made him experience.

It took him a little longer than he expected, but when he finally encountered a slightly bigger passage that stretched upwards, he let himself smile at his first significant victory. For high-rise buildings such as their HQ, straight large vertical ducting pipes delivering fresh air supplies to each floor was the sure way to reach the top. 

Wedging his knees, feet, and elbows against the plate steel walls, he climbed. Friction was his only friend now. 

He could feel his blood dripping from all the wounds he had gained, making his climb more difficult than it already was, but still, up and up he went until he could go no further. 

Finally, he reached the top floor. 

He already went past over thirty floors. Meaning, he reached the floor of the main air intake of the building’s centralized air-conditioning system—which meant only one thing for him as of the moment: outside.

He was crawling again—a much easier feat than climbing up. All he needed to do was to move forward.

After taking his third left turn through agonizingly sharp corners, Jae finally saw a streak of light. He followed it until he came face to face with a small grilled square window that had a fan mounted on it, blades rotating at a very slow pace. His exit.

*** 

“What took you guys so long?” Wonpil said when his men arrived.

“Sorry sir, we came as fast as we can.”

Wonpil raised a hand. “Enough. Let’s go.” 

They wasted too much time. Jae could have escaped already. He knew his friend. He knew his capability more than anyone else. And he knew his weaknesses more than anyone, too.

Ever since they were little, Jae had been an achiever. But Wonpil wasn’t a pushover either. He had been always on top of everything: academics, martial arts, music, you name it and he topped it. But everything changed when Jae came. Suddenly the boy became the star of everything. No matter how much effort Wonpil put into the things he excelled in before, he remained nothing but a shadow of the lanky guy.

The team proceeded as planned. Wonpil stationed men at every exit that Jae would probably emerge from, giving instructions to be as discreet as possible to avoid public eyes since the sun had just set and many people were still on their way home. 

He also sent men to search the perimeter inside the one-kilometer radius, just in case Jae had already escaped the building. 

Then he chose the exit that Jae would most likely appear. Judging Jae’s personality, Wonpil can confidently say that Jae didn’t know a thing about the ducting layout of the building and according to his deduction, he would move by just following his instincts (which was always almost correct), and that would be to climb higher and higher until he reached the upper ground floors. The probability of him turning left at intersections would be around 75% and that would ultimately lead him to where Wonpil was standing right now—at the West Wing.

***

Jae halted. 

Hunters, guns, and other anti-vampire weapons permeated the air from the outside. Detaching the window would take little to no effort for him, but the noise it would generate would give his location away. 

He looked over his shoulder, at the darkness behind him, contemplating to go back and find another exit. But he was sure as hell that all the other exits would also have guards and the possibility of encountering a hunter on his way back was high considering how much time had already passed since he left Sungjin’s laboratory.

The best choice was to move forward even though it would be a suicide given his current state—naked with no weapon to count on to. 

Jae’s eyes trained at the steel bars he was holding and an idea hit him. 

He was wrong. 

His weapon was actually in front of him all along.

In a flash, he ripped the fan off the steel window and kicked his legs against the steel plate that served as his surfboard for the past couple of minutes, propelling himself forward along with the square piece of metal he uprooted from the concrete wall.

Everything happened so fast that Jae’s first victim wasn’t even able to raise his sword when the crude weapon hit the back of his head simultaneously as Jae landed on the ground after jumping from the twentieth floor. He had no time to say sorry though, for two hunters came running at him as soon as they felt his presence—which was just a fraction of a second after their comrade fell on the ground unconscious.

The first one to arrive thrust his sword forward and Jae had to stop himself from smirking at how shitty the movement was. He easily caught the sword with a slit on his “weapon” and yanked it out of the hunter’s hand, disarming him. 

The callow lad pulled two knives from his thighs but Jae was already dropping from above him, launching both elbows to dislocate the poor hunter’s shoulders. The knives fell on the ground, immediately followed with a cry of agony from its wielder. He wouldn’t be able to move his arms for two months, but he’ll live, Jae made sure of that.

He was considering picking up the knives to ditch the steel window on his hands when he smelled gunpowder in the air. 

Jae turned his head in time to see two bullets coming his way. He raised his weapon to repel the first one, but the second one hit his forearm.

Wonpil.

Jae gritted his teeth at the sight of his former best friend.

Two more shots.

Jae simultaneously dived on the ground, grabbing the knives and dismissed the square welded steel bars. The enormous weapon proved to be a burden to his now wounded arm when he felt its weight slow him down a bit. 

He rolled to his side and threw one knife using his undamaged arm, aiming it at Wonpil. 

Instead of dodging, Wonpil shot the knife away. 

Jae figured as much.

Not wasting any opportunity, he sprang to his feet and dashed towards the nearest empty building to his right. He wanted to move the fallen knife with his powers and attack Wonpil but he didn’t have the luxury to focus on such a small object and do any complicated maneuver so he tried his luck on a bigger one. And that was the piece of discarded lumber conveniently lying beside Wonpil’s feet.

Jae knew by heart that Wonpil wasn’t very fond of running around for he heavily relied on the range of his guns that’s why he got surprised when Wonpil _actually_ ran after him, unknowingly dodging the lumber that Jae covertly moved to trip him up. 

_The lucky piece of shit._

Jae saw the younger pull the triggers in his periphery, but he couldn’t react on time.

“Shit,” he cursed as the first one hit his right shoulder. 

The second one was flying straight to his temple. 

He’s a goner. 

He could see it, but it was difficult for him to dodge. 

At the speed that he was running using his vampire abilities he wasn’t used to yet, controlling his momentum was next to impossible. Even when the first bullet hit him, his speed didn’t falter at all.

He was about to give up running to just dive on the ground when the bullet changed its course. Instead of splitting his skull, it only grazed his arm.

But it was not magic that made it happen, nor was Wonpil’s doing.

He saw it.

Ten meters before Wonpil’s bullet could reach him, another bullet appeared out of thin air and slightly touched the spinning piece of life-threatening copper, altering its direction.

Whoever fired the third bullet, Jae was forever grateful to him.

Once Jae was on the cover, he started running like crazy. Not even a 16-valve, four-cylinder motorbike could catch up to him at his speed and so definitely not the hunters that he could outrun any time of the day even when he was still one of them. 

Speeding past busy streets and quiet residences, nobody gave Jae a second glance. His presence was almost unnoticeable as he left only blurry images on high-tech CCTVs. 

With nimble feet that seemed to never touch the ground, Jae was a peregrine falcon slicing through the air with ease. He wasn’t aware of his own speed by then though, for his only goal was to reach the mountains at the heart of Seoul in the shortest time possible. He would hide there for the time being. Plans would have to wait until he’s fully recovered.

But even though he was flying, the hunters would eventually find the trail of blood he was leaving behind. 

He willed himself to contract his wounds close (another ability he discovered when Sungjin was experimenting on him) but it didn’t work. The bullet wounds were too deep and as a hunter himself, he knew for a fact that they coated the bullets with chemicals that slowed down vampire healing abilities.

Jae had reached the mountains already when he felt his strength deplete at an alarmingly fast rate. Breathing was getting difficult as he continued to run through thick forests and vast fields. He needed to stop and rest somewhere safe. And clothes. He needed clothes. He thought if he gets to live longer, things like fighting using a window grille as a weapon and running like a madman in boxer shorts were two of the things he didn’t want to experience again.

The black skies ahead promised a bountiful of heavy rain, but Jae couldn’t find a shelter anywhere near him. The only sign of civilization in that vast wilderness he had stumbled upon was some sort of a mansion, but even that was too far away. He could only see its brightly illuminated pointed roof peeking from the tree canopies. _What is a mansion doing in the middle of nowhere anyway?_ was his last thought before his brain stopped functioning and everything went black.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this chapter took me ages to finish


	10. Pelting Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /pelting rain/  
>  \- sky bombarding the earth with countless droplets of water

It was getting dark. The sun already kissed the seas its last goodbye from a faraway horizon, but Brian stayed standing by the window—his most favorite part of the mansion. Actually, windows could be his most favorite part of any house. Unless it’s a windowless house. If he came to live in such a house, he would break some walls to create an opening himself then. And then from there, he would enjoy the breeze of the wind, he would watch the day pass by without the risk of further burning his skin and he would learn about his surroundings—and that’s what he was doing as of the moment. He figured that to find his way home; he needed to start somewhere. And that would be getting familiar with the lands around the mansion.

He was looking at a certain direction, tracing the peak of the towering trees lining down the hill with his line of vision when he noticed an approaching blurry shadow. It was travelling at an unimaginably fast speed that he could barely make out the shape of it. A vampire? But why was it running towards the vampire council head’s mansion? It seemed like the creature was on the run too. 

Brian squinted his eyes and spanned the outstretched fields to see if there were any indications of pursuers. 

When he could not find any, he returned his focus on the running creature. 

But it wasn’t there anymore.

It vanished.

Where did it go?

Brian knew that what he was about to do would be dangerous but before he could think about the consequences, he was already jumping off the ledge of the window and running towards the thick forest.

Who was that creature? 

And why did it vanish? 

If it was a Fer, he shouldn’t get scared anymore now that he also became one. And if it was a Preene or an Asgar, all the more that he should not get scared of it. 

But what if it was a hunter? 

When the thought struck him, he stopped in his tracks and plumped down on one knee before scanning the surroundings. 

It was black everywhere he looked. Thick gray clouds covered the moon that should serve as his illumination so he could only rely on his keen eyesight. He observed the humongous tree trunks and branches of the trees that surrounded him. If it was him planning an ambush, he would find the highest spot and settle there to wait for his prey. It was the best place to hide. But he could see no one. Was it someone who had the ability to hide their presence?

He got up and was about to leave when a sweet breeze hit him.

Blood.

He gulped.

Someone was bleeding, and that someone had the sweetest blood scent Brian had ever encountered in his entire life. It was familiar but foreign. It was a scent he had encountered before. Or to be precise, it was the scent of the human that helped him before, but somehow, this time, the blood was sweeter and much more refined. He could tell by the tingling in his nose how exquisite this blood was.

And it could only mean one thing: he had successfully turned that human into a vampire!

Since ancient times, fellow vampire blood had been the highest grade of nutrition for vampires. Especially those of noble Fers. There had been no human that possessed blood as enticing as theirs. Vampires only resort to human blood since they are much easier to acquire due to the dense population and even if they taste second rate, they still provided the necessary nutrition.

Now more vigilant than ever, Brian followed the scent, passing through thick vegetation and some clearings until he found a glowing body of a man. In contrast with the darkness engulfing the forest, it shone.

He crouched down where he stood, all five senses alert for any sign of an attack as he observed his find. The man’s long pale limbs sprawled on the ground with his face planted on the grass. And his particularly overlong silver hair messily covered his cut riddled shoulders. The man had red blotches all over.

The skies above crackled and lighted up the darkness for a split of a second before Brian felt a drop of water drip down his neck, tracing the skin on his back, followed by another until his shirt clung to his skin.

Heavy rain poured, soaking the earth and everything on it but the man on the ground remained still. 

The inside of Brian’s mouth watered. His pulse quickened as he continued to stare at the pale skin glistening with rain water. He knew that the man was still alive judging by the warm scent of blood pervading his sense, but he wasn’t sure if the man would continue breathing if he left him out there naked in the rain. So with this thought, he suppressed his urge to consume and took the man with him back to the mansion. 

No matter how fast Brian ran, by the time he reached shelter, the rain drenched him. He left trails of water as he entered his room through the balcony.

With nowhere else to place the feverish body in his arms, Brian sacrificed his bed. 

As he laid him down, the accumulated water from both of them formed blotches on the bed covers before quickly seeping into the foam. 

Now that he looked at the man’s body with the help of the lights, he found out he was dirty. Soot covered his knees and elbows. The stains were so severe that even the heavy rain wasn’t able to wash it away. The man needed a cleaning. And some decent clothes to put on afterwards.

But what should he do first? Asking for someone else’s help is out of the question. Ever since Brian was a child, the only time that he needed his gramma’s help was when he got bullied by a group of Fer kids. And if he called for help, he could only ask Jimin since all the Preene servants in the mansion weren’t allowed to be in their presence, much less talk to them. But Jimin was Jimin. The woman was dangerous. Something was telling Brian that letting her see the man weak and helpless would not result in anything good, so he dismissed the idea entirely.

Brian scanned the room for something to use to clean the guy. And a neatly folded pile of clothes caught his eyes. His clothes. He scrunched his brows as he approached it, thinking that maybe a servant was here just moments ago but left in a hurry when he felt his presence. Hence the unkept clothes. They weren’t even his clothes anyway. They were this room’s clothes. He’s just borrowing them for the time being.

He picked up a white undershirt and brought it to the bathroom. There, he turned on the faucet and let the water seep through the fabric before wringing it. He would have preferred to take a bucket or a basin of water with him back to the man on his bed, but he couldn’t find anything of that sort.

When he went back, the man’s position was still the same as he left him: arms on his sides while lying straight on his back.

Brain leaned forward and swept away the silver strands of hair covering the man’s face before dabbing the damp cloth on his forehead. He traced the contour of the man’s face before giving attention to his brows, eyes, nose and lips. He removed the traces of blood on his mouth while trying his best not to taste them. Dried blood wasn’t really a delicacy, but seeing it on a pair of moist lips, Brian wondered how they would taste. He shook his head. He needed to focus. Brian could postpone consuming until later. He could ask the man nicely and he could even offer his own blood in return. It shouldn’t be so bad.

Once he got satisfied with the face, he continued down the man’s neck and shoulders. And on the man’s arm, he noticed a serious injury. Most of the other cuts had already started healing, and the blood was drying, but on this certain wound, the blood trickling down to the mattress was still fresh and the flesh around the wound was darkening. 

Brian had to do something about it. Fast. But what should he do? Should he really call Jimin over?

He scrutinized the wound. It looked like something was embedded in there. He grimaced at the thought. He had something similar that happened to him before. A splinter of wood had sunk in his flesh while playing, so he knew how much it hurt.

He dabbed the cloth on the wound as gently as he could, but the action still evoked pain to the man.

The man winced and raised one bended knee high in the air, like it was kicking someone. Fortunately, it didn’t hit Brian, but he saw something interesting.

Inside the left thigh of this man was a marble sized half moon mark. It looked like it was tattooed there using black ink. 

Brian unknowingly felt the base of his neck and looked at the mirror on the opposite side of the room. He had the same mark in there. The only difference is that his half moon was facing the opposite way. His mark wasn’t there before. He only discovered it after waking up there in Jimin’s mansion.

The man let out a groan, and that made Brian’s mind go back to the task at hand. He would just ask the man about the half moon mark later on.

Electric blue eyes met Brian’s own.

Brian opened and closed his lips twice because he didn’t know what to do or say. All he knew was that he should tend the wound first. 

“You have a nasty cut on your arm.”

The man’s eyes flew towards the said wound. 

Brian hesitated for a bit before he asked, "Umm...can you tell me how to clean that?"

The man’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something to Brian, but no words came out. 

Brian looked around the room and grabbed the glass of water that had been sitting on top of the table since morning and handed it to the man.

But the man just held the glass before staring at him.

“Oh! I’m sorry.” Brian shuffled over and grabbed the man’s shoulder to help him sit up.

When they were seated, the man drank the water in three chugs.

“Thank you,” the man said in a hoarse voice.

After replying with a curt nod, Brian took the glass and placed it back on the table. “So...about your wound,” Brian scratched the back of his head. “It looks serious.”

“Is my blood bothering you?” 

Brian felt his cheeks heat up. He got found out. Because yeah, more than being worried that the man might die, he was more worried about his vampire instinct. Wait, does that mean that the man knew what he was? 

He answered with a small nod. “I’m sorry,” Brian gulped. The man was still full of dirt, but he smelled delicious. Brian’s mouth was watering the entire time.

“Right,” the man muttered to himself before inspecting his arm. “It looks awful. Do you have tweezers and hot water?”

“I’m not sure about tweezers but is a hand knife alright too? I will try to find one in the kitchen.”

The man blinked twice before offering a slight nod. 

Brian let the man lean on the head of the bed before he went on his way to find what he needed. 

***

“What sorry excuse do you have this time?”

Wonpil flinched at the sound of his father’s voice. He trained his eyes on his empty plate and slowly retracted his hand from the food he was about to serve to himself.

“I don’t have any excuse, father.”

Sunday. The day when the Kim family dined together in their house. And it’s also the day Wonpil despised the most.

His mother sighed from her seat. Her utensils clanked against the ceramic plate. “Even as a lowly blood-sucking monster, Jae is still better than you it seems.” She shook her head before turning towards her husband. “Honey, I think it’s time we decide that Dowoon should be the one we need to groom to become the next head of our clan.”

“Mother!” Dowoon interjected.

“I am not talking to you,” she hissed, and the boy fell silent. 

Wonpil’s hold on his spoon tightened. His mother, or technically Dowoon’s mother, threw him a side glance as if waiting for his reaction. He didn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him upset as he just stared at his plate with a blank expression.

His father took a sip from his glass. 

Wonpil could feel his father’s intense glare boring at his skull. His heart tightened. Sweat formed on his forehead as he fought the urge to throw up. _‘You are not a child anymore. You are not helpless anymore. You can stand up against him. You can…’_

Wonpil’s chant inside his head stopped when his father spoke.

“I will raise this issue during our clan meeting this week.”

“Father!” the chair rattled as Dowoon rose from his seat.

Wonpil raised his head to look at his little brother. It was the first time that the boy raised his voice against the head of their family.

“Dowoon!” their mother screeched.

“It was all my fault, mother,” Dowoon was looking everywhere but Wonpil. “I helped Jae hyung escape. I...I fired my gun in time to deflect Wonpil hyung’s last bullet,” he paused and this time, lowered his voice considerably, “If I didn’t interfere, hyung would have killed the one and only friend he ever had.”

There was a slight disruption in the air, and Dowoon was on the floor, gasping for breath. Wonpil dove and covered his brother’s body in reflex with his own. He felt air knocked out of his lungs. He could not start to imagine what Dowoon was going through right now. Wonpil was only suffering from the side pressure of their father’s killing intent and he could barely breathe, so what about Dowoon who was the center of it all? 

Upon seeing Dowoon collapsed on the floor, their mother grabbed her husband’s arm. “Honey, please stop. I will catch and kill that monster. We can still lift our clan’s name. And I need Dowoon to do that. Spare the child.”

A crisp sound of a clean slap reverberated in the room before Wonpil could properly breathe again. Their father finally withdrew his aura and left the room. Their mother followed suit whilst holding her reddening face, but not without leaving an extra threat to banish Wonpil if he failed to kill Jae this time. 

Wonpil got up and left the dining room as well, ignoring Dowoon’s calls to him in between ragged breaths.

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End file.
